{"id":5919,"date":"2015-05-05T07:12:39","date_gmt":"2015-05-05T12:12:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/?p=5919"},"modified":"2015-05-05T07:12:39","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T12:12:39","slug":"a-time-to-write","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/2015\/05\/05\/a-time-to-write\/","title":{"rendered":"A Time to Write"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-content\/upLoads\/ipad-and-keyboard.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5920\" src=\"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-content\/upLoads\/ipad-and-keyboard.jpg\" alt=\"iPad and Apple Keyboard\" width=\"800\" height=\"531\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-content\/upLoads\/ipad-and-keyboard.jpg 800w, http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-content\/upLoads\/ipad-and-keyboard-300x199.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a>I got into a bad habit the past week. I allowed myself to do other things before writing:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Let me edit this podcast&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Let me clean the kitchen&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Let me run these errands&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Let me do this and that&#8230;and <em>then<\/em> I&#8217;ll write.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The problem is, I haven&#8217;t written as much as usual since returning from the recent writing retreat. A bit last weekend, but that&#8217;s about it.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Writing Time<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Last night, I watched this video.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/RCAYWzXzdaU\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>This morning, a friend commented on one of the things David Magee says in the video:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>If you don&#8217;t have a writing time, you&#8217;re always writing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>If your writing time is &#8220;after I mow the yard and fix that cabinet swinging open in the kitchen,&#8221; you&#8217;re not going to finish what you write. We&#8217;re good at making work for ourselves; there&#8217;s <em>always<\/em> something we can be doing, it seems.<\/p>\n<p>If writing doesn&#8217;t take a certain priority in life, you&#8217;ll find yourself working on a book for a decade. Hell, it was only after telling myself that I&#8217;d have a first draft of the current novel done by the end of 2014 that I finished it in January of this year.<\/p>\n<p>It took a self-imposed deadline to get me to finish something a couple weeks after that deadline&#8230;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>We Are &#8220;Busy&#8221; People<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>I can make excuses about how long it took to get a first draft of the current novel:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I started a new job.<\/li>\n<li>People close to me died.<\/li>\n<li>Other things happened.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But when I&#8217;m not as productive, it always comes back to one thing: I didn&#8217;t make time for writing. I cleaned the office instead of sitting down to write. I worked on a design for a website I never started. I did other things first, all in an effort to make time to write.<\/p>\n<p>The thing is, if you want to write, writing must come first&#8230;or at least be a priority over the many tasks that will still be there after writing. You can kid yourself that, &#8220;If I do those things, I&#8217;ll be able to write with a clear head,&#8221; but there&#8217;s always another task waiting. (Writing is rarely <a title=\"Writing Inspiration\" href=\"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/2015\/03\/19\/writing-inspiration\/\">an inspired act<\/a> done with a clear mind, so <a title=\"Get to the Desk\" href=\"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/2015\/03\/24\/get-to-the-desk\/\">get yourself to the desk<\/a>!)<\/p>\n<h2><strong>This Morning<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>I woke up at 5:30 this morning, even though I could have slept until 7:15. I got up and I worked on the novel for an hour, had breakfast, and then wrote this. I didn&#8217;t think about the two major releases I&#8217;m in the middle of at work. I didn&#8217;t make a graphic for this week&#8217;s podcast. I didn&#8217;t even make a mug of tea.<\/p>\n<p>I sat down&#8230;and I wrote.<\/p>\n<p>Magee is correct: If you don&#8217;t have a writing time, you&#8217;re always writing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I got into a bad habit the past week. I allowed myself to do other things before writing: Let me edit this podcast&#8230; Let me clean the kitchen&#8230; Let me run these errands&#8230; Let me do this and that&#8230;and then I&#8217;ll write. The problem is, I haven&#8217;t written as much as usual since returning from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5919"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5919"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5923,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5919\/revisions\/5923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}